Chapter 18 (1/2)

She looks slightly offended, but her voice remains soft and raspy. “I’m just wondering why you would want to drive all the way to Haworth to see the moors.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and takes a deep breath. “Hardin, I know you enough to know when you’re brooding and withdrawing from me.” She unbuckles her seat belt and shifts her body to face me. “You wanting to take me to the moors that inspired Wuthering Heights, rather than some place from an Austen novel, has me on edge, more than I already am.”

She can see right through my bullshit. How does she always do that?

“No,” I lie. “I was simply thinking you would like to see the moors and Brontë Country. Sue me.” I roll my eyes to avoid that damn look in hers, not willing to admit that she’s right.

Her fingers play with the wrapper of a breakfast bar. “Well, I’d rather not go there, really. I just want to go home.”

I let out a deep breath and grab the bar from her hands, tearing open the wrapper. “You need to eat something. You look like you’ll pass out any moment.”

“I feel that way,” she says quietly, more to herself than me, it seems.

I’m considering shoving the damned thing into her mouth, when she takes it from me for a bite.

“You want to go home, then?” I finally ask her. Not wanting to ask where exactly home will be for her.

She grimaces. “Yes, your father was right. London isn’t as I imagined.”

“I ruined it for you, that’s why.”

She doesn’t deny it, but she doesn’t confirm it either. Her silence and the way she’s vacantly staring out at the trees pushes me to say what I need to say. It’s now or never.

“I think I should stay here for a while . . .” I say into the open air between us.

Tessa’s mouth stops its chewing, and she turns, narrowing her eyes at me. “Why?”

“It doesn’t make sense for me to go back there.”

“No, it doesn’t make sense for you to stay here. Why would you even consider that?”

Her feelings are hurt, just like I knew they would be—but what other choice do I have?